As ELAC is enjoying her newfound resources on Planet HTRAE, compliments of Dr. Buddy Bones; we will now return to planet Earth (sort of).
d.: I’m sorry, Cal.E. I was trying to come up with a tagline for my book, “Beyond the Thirteenth Mile; The Iron Man Chronicles, not our blog. This discussion just got way out of hand!
C.: It’s okay d.c. I got carried away, too. What is the book about?
d.: It is about a thirty-five-year-old former high school athlete with a surgically rebuilt knee and a bad back who suffers from asthma, training for and competing in an Ironman distance triathlon.
C.: I see. and what distances does said race entail, may I ask?
d.: It starts with a two-point four-mile, open water swim. No pool walls to push off on. The competitors must finish this part of the race in less than two hours and twenty minutes. Then, the competitors undertake cycling 112 miles over hot, hilly terrain. They must finish this part of the race in ten hours or less. The last part of the race is a 26.2-mile run, or a marathon distance finish. They must finish this part of the race in seven hours or less. All three disciplines must be completed in seventeen hours or less, including the two transitions between disciplines.
C.: How did you come up with the name for your book, d.c.?
d.: When competitors undertake running a marathon, every step they take beyond the thirteenth mile burns body fat and muscle tissue. Somewhere between the twentieth and twenty-third mile, all of the competitors’ physical reserves are exhausted, leaving them with only their mental facilities for the last, exhausting three to six miles of the run. When one competes in an Ironman distance triathlon, the marathon is the last thing the competitor does.
The second part is because the book is loosely based on a journal I kept while training for this event for almost four years. It is a true, first-person account of the events in my training and personal life during that time.
C.: I see. Is thirty-five an old age for a competitor in this race?
d.: Not really. One does not develop his/her “slow-twitch” muscle fully until after the age of thirty. This is one of the few races in which someone in his/her thirties would have an advantage over someone in their twenties. At least, that is true of men. I think women probably hit their peaks a little earlier in life.
The oldest man ever to cross the finish line in the world championship Ironman distance triathlon in Hawaii was Bill Bell for many years. He was seventy-six at the time. He tried again the next year, and had a DNF placed by his name after he dove for the finish line less than two minutes after the time limit expired. The DNF stands for “did not finish,” meaning his time was not recorded in the record books, after much discussion by the officials.
C.: Has anyone ever bettered Bill Bell?
d.: Yes. Hiromu Inada was eighty-five when he crossed the finish line in Hawaii with less than seven minutes to spare in 2018.
C.: Okay. What is a tagline, and why does your book need one?
d.: A tagline is a one or two-sentence synopsis of the book. It gets people’s attention quickly. A good tagline can be the key to selling a lot of books!
C.: Mhmm. Mhmm. Mhmm. Let me think. How about this? What would encourage a man (or a woman, or a cat, a pig, a cow, a dog, a horse, a sheep, an armadillo, a donkey, a tortoise, or a hare, a jackal, or a timber wolf,) to push themselves to try to go beyond their believed physical and mental limitations? What would possess a competitor to go Beyond the Thirteenth Mile? Read “Beyond the Thirteenth Mile; The Iron Man Chronicles and find out! Beyond the Thirteenth Mile, the Iron Man Chronicles. Coming soon!
d.: Wow, Cal.E. That is really good! I think I will use that for my tagline for my book, minus all the animals, if you do not mind.
C.: Of course, for one-half of the profits!
d.: Well, maybe. I will see how successful the book is, then we can discuss your fee.
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